We’re shocked to discover Jessica Simpson doesn’t read our blog

Click here to read our blog post (by guest blogger Alanna Shaikh), just one of manypiecesout there trying to give people good advice on the best ways to help in Haiti (HINT: NOT by sending them your old shoes.)

10 Comments

JustaStudent wrote:

At first when I saw this I was like well that’s stupid. Then I thought about it, the receivers will be able to sell or trade the shoes for what they deem to be more useful (like they are already doing with tents, food aid and items left behind by workers). So perhaps there will be some positive externalities!

Well, justastudent, don’t you think that anyone in Haiti now who has something useful to trade those shoes with can afford new shoes?

Why are you comparing tent and food aid to used shoes?

If you had lost your life and livelihood, would you rather':
a) someone came to you and asked, “what do you need, to live through this day or to get your life back together?;
b) Someone flew in a tonne of used shoes

If anyone has the time and resources to collect old shoes, then they do have the time and resources to figure out that Haitians dont need those

@joe: Sure, under the following circumstances:
– It meets a clearly described need expressed by the recipients.
– It is impossible to meet the need through existing structures in the recipients’ society.
– Negative side-effects of the donation cumulatively do not outweigh the positive effects. (This one trips up a lot of people; e.g. what negative side effects could there possibly be from donating shoes? Well, read Saundra’s response above, and many other posts.)
– The logistics of collection, transport, distribution, support, and maintenance are all carefully worked out and fully funded.
– The organisation(s) doing the collection, transport, distribution, support, and maintenance are in a position to monitor those on an ongoing basis until the end of the expected lifetime of the donation and to respond to disruptions.

@joe: forgot to mention one other condition: the aid does not compete with other aid that adds more value to the recipients (more lives saved, more suffering alleviated, more income added…), either in fundraising, collection, or logistics.

I have to say that although I do feel that it’s important to raise awareness and help, what strikes me as somewhat unusual is the choice of things that take centre stage when it is food and homes and medical help and eduction that these people need the most.

Having done work in Africa, they don’t think about their feet or their appearance, when they are starving to death.

[…] seen some bloggers upset about the mass donation of used shoes to the Haitian crisis. That was only the beginning. Remember Clowns Without Borders? They go to needy locations […]

About Aid Watch

The Aid Watch blog is a project of New York University's Development Research Institute (DRI). This blog is principally written by William Easterly, author of "The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics" and "The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good," and Professor of Economics at NYU. It is co-written by Laura Freschi and by occasional guest bloggers. Our work is based on the idea that more aid will reach the poor the more people are watching aid.

"Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking." - H.L. Mencken